Adult vs junior challenge "matches"

[Andrew Zigmond]

Since January I've had an influx of new players to the Harrogate Youth Chess Club (during the Spring term I think there were only three weeks where I didn't have at least one new student) and many of these have already reached a standard where they can hold their own at the base levels of adult league chess. Frustratingly by the time they did so the main part of the competitive season was over, giving limited chances to play.

So last night I organised a challenge "match" against adults from the main Harrogate CC (due to better than expected interest from the Youth CC I've had to split it across two Mondays and there will be another match next week). It was a full rated "match" played under match conditions. The "match" was arranged so as far as possible the juniors would get a tough game but not one that they couldn't win.

You're probably wondering why I've put "match" in inverted commas - the reason is was more about the individual games rather than the final score (the adults did win 4 1/2- 1 1/2 but that was in no way the point).

The other plus was that it created an opportunity for lower graded adults who are often perennial reserves for the club teams to get a proper game and hone their skills. Indeed an adult new to match chess completely outplayed a young player who has shown a few teeth this season.

The purpose of this post was simply to share good practice in case any other clubs wanted to experiment with the same idea.

[MSoszynski]

Not exactly to do with juniors as such, but years ago my Club held a one-off "Men versus Boys" match (because unlike now the Club was all male). It was fun enough though not repeated. One thing it highlighted, by drawing attention to age, was just how comparatively elderly the Club membership was at the time. It highlighted it without actually changing anything. Still, especially in clubs with few or no juniors, a "Young v Old" or "Youth v Experience" match today could be instructive and revealing. "Is he really that old?!"